Maddie had expected to go to school today.
She'd expected to wake up, go to school, have pizza for lunch, maybe read a book during quiet class time, and come home to do homework. She'd expected a routine, monotonous, uninteresting day like every other. Unfortunately, that wasn't what her morning consisted of. Instead, what she woke up to...was blood. When she approached Lilian, who was still asleep, she was mortified of asking for help. Standing there, watching Lilian snore as she lay sprawled across her own bed, with Miranda laying beside her, she bit her lip nervously, pulled her fleece blanket up over her shoulders tighter and sighed, walking into the room. She approached the bed, reached out and touched Lilian's shoulder, gently shaking her until one of her eyes fluttered halfway open. "Mmm...hey...are you okay? Is it time for school?" Lilian asked, until she saw the clock and realized it was still two hours until school started; now confused, she looked back at Maddie and asked, "are you feeling sick?" "...I need help please," Maddie said, her voice shaky and scared, "...there's blood in my bed." That got Lilian's attention. The day had finally come. She was just surprised it had arrived so early. *** "What do you think about this?" Alex asked, showing John the image of the haircut she was thinking of. "It's not bad," he said, biting into his apple, "it would frame your face really well." "Yeah?" Alexis asked, pulling the brochure back towards her and continuing to look, "I...guess it could be okay." John looked up and around at the other clients in the salon, here for various treatments. Coloring, washing, cutting. He started to think about Star, and his eyes wetted instantly. He shook the thoughts away and returned to focusing on his apple instead, while Alexis turned the page, still uncertain of just what kind of haircut to get. After a moment, she set the magazine face down in her lap, spread and open to the page she had been on, and looked back at John as she chewed nervously on her nails. "You know, when I was a little girl, my mom used to cut my hair all the time," she said, "and one day, on the day she was supposed to do it, she had to work instead. She worked as a secretary for a really sketchy lawyer in a strip mall, and she didn't make much, so she had to take the hours when she could. Anyway, she left the job up to my father, who didn't know a damn thing about cutting hair. So he sits me down in this tall stool in the kitchen, and he starts doing it, but he's been drinking a bit, and after a bit, I feel this pinch, and then I see blood start coming down the front of my shirt from my neck. He'd nicked my ear with the scissors. Expectedly, I freaked out, and later so did my mother, and she did all my hair cutting again from then on. I haven't let anyone but her cut my hair since, so it's been....a few years since I've had my haircut, and now it's by a total stranger and I'm having feelings of intense anxiety over someone I don't know or trust getting close to me with scissors." "Yeah but these are professionals," John said, "professionals don't make mistakes." "Uh, Chernobyl?" Alex asked, making John chuckle. "Okay, most of the time," he replied, "trust me, the girl who does my hair does is excellent, she won't harm you." Alexis nodded, feeling a bit more relieved. She then went back to reading, as John's mind trailed off, thinking back to Star, and taking her to get her first haircut, post accident, and what an ordeal that had been. The second that someone approached her with anything remotely resembling a sharp object, thanks to the crash and the wreckage thereof, she absolutely flipped out and started screaming uncontrollably. John never took her to get a haircut again. Seems like, in some warped way, history was repeating itself. Just on a far less uncomfortable scale. *** "This isn't a big deal," Lilian said as she and Maddie walked down the aisles of the superstore, looking for menstrual products; Maddie was nervously clinging to her, like a lost little puppydog, and Lilian kept patting her on the back, adding, "it really isn't, this sort of thing happens to almost every woman. It's scary at first, maybe, but after that initial shock, yeah. You get used to it." "I really don't like waking up in a bed of blood," Maddie replied, making Lilian smirk. "Yeah, I get that. Thankfully I don't have to work today, so I can help you get through this," she said, "you'll be okay." They walked a little further, passing by a mom with two kids, one in the shopping cart and the other, a daughter about Maddie's age, holding onto the shopping cart and talking endlessly. Maddie looked at the ground as she walked and sighed. She was growing up without her parents. She had Lilian, and she loved her for having stepped up when someone needed to, and she was appreciative that she wasn't alone, but in this critical life changing moment of her adolescence, she didn't have her mother, and that stung a little. But she would never let Lilian know that, she figured that sort of information would break her heart, seeing how hard she was trying. "You know," Lilian started again, as they turned a corner and headed down another aisle, this time the correct one, "when I got my period, my mother didn't talk to me for a few days because she felt like her little girl was grown up now. But some blood coming out of you doesn't dictate anything. It's just a biological sign that shows your body is capable of new things. Doesn't change your mentality in the slightest, not unless you let it, and I certainly didn't let it change me." Maddie looked up at her and sniffled, nodding, smiling. Lilian ran her hand up into Maddie's hair and scruffed it a bit. "And if you're anything like me, and it seems like you are, then you won't let it change a thing about you either. You haven't let anything else change anything about you - not even things that should theoretically drastically alter a person - so why should this?" Lilian added as they finally arrived at the correct aisle. As they headed down, Maddie seeming extremely hesitant and nervous, she couldn't help but also feel a sense of belonging and safety because she had a grown woman with her who cared, and would help her get through anything. "What...should I get?" Maddie asked, and Lilian shrugged. "They're all basically the same, except for branding; just pick stuff and I'll tell you what I think," Lilian said. As she felt Maddie finally let go of her, and headed further into the aisle herself, she felt a weird sense of pride. In a way, it was as if she were making up for her own poor childhood by being a better mother to Maddie than either of theirs had ever been to them. Lilian knew her mother wasn't terrible by any means - flawed, certainly, but not terrible in the slightest - but she never wanted to make Maddie feel alone or confused or forgotten. And if there's one moment that no girl should ever have to feel those things... ...it's the moment they enter womanhood. *** Alexis, seated in a chair, looking at herself in the mirror, felt anxious. The woman cutting her hair was a tall, leggy woman in her 40s. She had long albeit bundled up blonde hair and seemed to be gathering the right brushes and shampoos required for the full salon treatment, while Alexis watched her him and haw and shashay around behind her in the mirrors relfection. She chewed absentmindedly on her lip and thought about how she hadn't hair a haircut in so many years, and how nervous this made her. Surely this woman wouldn't hurt her, even on accident. Sure accidents happen, nobody could deny that, but this was a professional. She wouldn't steer her wrong, right? John sure wouldn't, and he's the one who suggested her, so she felt like she was in good, capable hands. "So, what do you think you want?" the stylist asked, causing Alexis to tense up. "Uh, I...I don't know. I've never before been asked what my preference for a cut is," she replied, "I grew up with my parents cutting my hair, so they just did whatever they thought was fine. I've never had think about having a say in the matter." "Well, you do now," the stylist responded, chuckling, "I saw you looking at the magazines while waiting, did you see anything you liked in there?" Alexis shrugged and thought about it for a few moments, then exhaled. "I like the idea of having bangs. I don't like my forehead. I wanna hide it. And maybe make the ends curled a bit; nothing really outstandingly noticeable, just somewhat curled, you know? I like simple hair. I don't...I don't wanna look that different," Alexis said, mumbling at the last part as the stylist patted her on the shoulder and got to work. "I can do that for you," she said. And as she did her job, and as Alexis watched herself transform even just the tiniest bit in the mirror before her, she started to feel a little bit more in control over herself. For so long, something else was controlling her. Her parents, the drugs, Vera. But now, here she was, making the decision of what to look like, and getting that sort autonomy, when you've never had it before, was exhilarating. She started to crack a smile, and by the time the stylist was done washing, color treating and cutting, Alexis liked what she saw in the mirror. Which was the first time in her life she didn't hate the person looking back. *** The front door to the apartment unlocked, and Lilian and Maddie entered to find an already cooking Miranda come from the kitchen, surprised and somewhat confused. She hadn't expected either of them back this early. She watched Maddie, plastic bag of supplies in hand, head to her bedroom while Lilian collapsed on the couch and Miranda seated herself on the coffee table in front of her, watching her. "Okay, so I know it's your day off, but...what about her? Why is she home? Did she get sick at school?" Miranda asked, and Lilian ran her hands through her hair, exhaling. "She got her first period today," Lilian said, and Miranda's eyes widened. "...oh," she said, "wow, uh, that wasn't the answer I expected. Wow. Alright. So...so you took her to get what she needed?" "Mhm," Lilian replied, sniffing the air, "what are you cooking?" "Spare ribs," Miranda said, "they're not ready, but you if you could go make the potatoes, I'd be grateful for the help." Lilian smiled and nodded, leaning forward and placing her hands on Miranda's face, kissing her before getting up and heading into the kitchen. Miranda, once Lilian was out of line of sight, got up as well, but headed towards Maddie's room. She entered and noticed Maddie sitting on her bed, wrapped fully in a blanket with just her face peaking out. As Miranda shut the door, their eyes locked and Miranda walked in further, seating herself on the bedside. "Hey," Miranda said, "I heard. Are you okay?" Maddie just shrugged, not even looking at her. "...look," Miranda said, "I'm probably not the best person to discuss this with, because I...I've never had one, I'll never know what it's like to have one, but I wanna tell you something, okay? You willing to listen to me?" Maddie nodded, still not speaking or looking her way. "...they say it's painful, and I don't doubt that it is, but...it's also considered a rite of passage. The moment you transition to womanhood is marked by this occasion, societally anyway. The pain you'll have to endure once a month is just...I mean, I've spoken to women about it, it's ungodly unfair. That being said, I just want to tell you how lucky you are." That got Maddie's attention. She finally turned her head to look at Miranda, her face contorted in a confused expression. "Excuse me?" Maddie asked. "Yeah, cause...listen, uh...this is gonna be hard to explain, but I'm gonna do my best, okay? From the other side, someone who isn't seen as a woman by a large majority of the population, everything I do has to be even more performative to femininity than a woman such as yourself, or Lilian. And while women have to put in an overabundance of effort to begin with, it's innate for the most part. You're taught it. Girls like me...we're not taught anything. If anything, we're told the opposite. To repress it. Ignore it. I have to take medicine every single day of my life in order to look even remotely the same, to have the same hormones as any biological woman, and that's on top of surgeries - which, fairly, not every woman like me cares to have - and while that's all exhausting, it doesn't stop me from dwelling on the things I can't have. While, yes, I can get myself close to the view of myself that I've always seen and want to project, I can never, no matter what I do, have things women like you have." Maddie sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve, listening. "I'd give anything in the world to endure the pain of periods, because...because to endure the pain of everything else I have to is so much worse, and daily instead of monthly," Miranda said, near tears, "and I'm not diminishing what you're gonna go through with this, but..." Maddie leaned in and hugged Miranda tightly around the waist, both of them crying. Miranda didn't even have to finish. Maddie understood. There's varying degrees of pain to womanhood and each had to fight to get through it. But at least they had one another. Womanhood came with sisterhood, that was the important part to remember. "We're both just learning to be women," Miranda whispered, stroking Maddie's hair, "and when it's effortless, it's like magic, and those are the times to be happy about it." Maddie herself felt very much like Miranda. Sure, she was born a girl, but her mother had never given her tips on how to act, how to be the sort of performative that society expected; she knew next to nothing about what was expected from young women. She didn't know how to do makeup. She didn't know how to use tampons until today. She didn't know anything. So maybe it was good that the best person available for her to learn was someone who also never knew. At least they had that much in common. *** The door to Star's room opened and she looked up from the floor, where she was sitting cross legged doing a large piece puzzle. As the door swung open more, John entered and shut the door behind himself. Star scrambled up from the floor and threw herself against him, hugging him tightly, making him laugh as he hugged her back. "Hey kiddo!" he said, "wow, what a greeting!" "You got a haircut," Star said, pulling away and looking at her father, and he nodded. "Yeah, nothing serious. You doing a puzzle? You want help?" he asked as she sat back down and went back to the puzzle. John seated himself on the opposite side from her and watched. "I don't need help! I'm a big girl," Star said as she went back to picking up the pieces and focusing on her puzzle once more. John smiled and nodded. She was, indeed, a big girl. There was no arguing that. So he sat there, and he opened the fast food he'd brought and they both ate in silence, just enjoying one anothers company. He'd dropped Alexis back off at the clinic after they'd had a small snack after the visit to the salon, and that was when he knew he should come see his daughter today. Alexis reminded him so much of the person Star would've been had she not been in the accident, though hopefully sans the addictive tendencies (though, who was he to judge, he'd been an alcoholic and drug user once himself). "What is this puzzle?" John asked, picking up the lid and looking at it. "It's of daddy," Star said, as he smiled, noticing the image on the box was of a clown. He laughed, Star laughed, and that laughter was the only sound they needed to fill the silence.
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A young woman named Lilian Phillips, who plays a princess at birthday parties, befriends a little girl who had a child die at her own birthday party. Archives
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